The Steam Database
has details on a patch for Fallout 3 that rolled out
a few days ago that removes some variables with names like ShowCDKeyOnLaunch and LegacyKeyRegistryLocation that the posters on
NeoGAF say
shows the removal of Games for Windows LIVE functionality from
Bethesda's action/RPG sequel. This is by no means a stretch, as various other
games have recently removed support for Microsoft's DRM, including
Ultra Street Fighter IV,
BioShock 2, the
Arkham series, and DiRT
3 amid rife speculation
that the service will soon end altogether following the closure of the GFWL
marketplace during
the summer. This should theoretically be easy enough to check, but
reinstalling Fallout 3 here has resulted in errors keeping the game from
launching, but for what it's worth, we did not see any GFWL. Thanks
The Escapist. Update: After getting the game to run (protip: Fallout
3 does not seem to appreciate dual-monitor setups), Fallout 3 ran without any
GFWL prompts. Update 2: Upon closer examination, the game did install the
Games for Windows LIVE client, and when this was uninstalled, Fallout 3 will no
longer launch.

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Panickd wrote on Jan 7, 2014, 13:48:Half the time it's downloading updates to games that it's already updated but it doesn't matter because it won't let you play until it's downloaded that update for the umpteenth time!

That's actually not true. It's one of the very few things that Uplay does better than Steam. When there's an update to be downloaded, you can cancel the update, go offline, and play the game and it'll let you. I did that with Black Flag recently when yet another 1.5 GB update of a few skins for MP was released, and it worked fine.

Black Flag isn't really a full on UPlay title though. They've got a proper SP executable and an entirely separate MP executable and none of it is really tied to the UPlay interface (you don't need to drop into the overlay for any of the MP stuff). But I have found UPlay time and again downloading the very same patch for Black Flag again and again (not new content, the same stuff). And I know it got that patch last time because I played it with no problem before. It did the exact same thing for the latest Splinter Cell game until it invisibly decided that it didn't need to do it anymore. And Ubisoft's only "fix" for it has been "delete it and download the whole game again" which didn't fix it for Splinter Cell and I'm sure as hell not deleting Black Flag just to find out it didn't work there either. Playing "offline" works just fine for SP but it doesn't help when you're looking to get the MP going while it's downloading that patch it got yesterday. And god help you if you didn't disable their cloud save service and now want to play offline.